Send me email updates about messages I've received
on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.By signing up, you certify that
you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.

MEN ?

Hello Everyone.. I have a question. I have been with my husband for 7 years and we have 2 beautiful daughters.. But I dont know if i am expecting to much of him he works full time and i am a stay at home mom which is a very exhausting yet rewarding job and I only ask him to once in a while help out yet he still even agfter 7 years cant manage to get him to do a thing unless i ask him and then hound him after i ask to have him accomplish whatever it was i asked him to do! also i am the only one who disciplines its just so aggrevating i am always the bad guy and he is the fun one even tho everything he does with them i told him to do!! please give me ur input and suggestions on how to work on this because i am now starting to resent him and be mad at him all the time now! help me please!! save my marriage! is this normal anyone else dealing with this?

I think you need to have a conversation with you dh. Explain all of this to him and let him know you are beginning to feel resentful and angry and you don't like that, but you need his willing involvement as well. Validate his hard work and ability to provide for the family, but explain that you need to have DAD there at least some nights - a dad who is involved with all aspects of the kids, playtime, bathtime, discipline, mealtime, and a companion to help you out here and there.
WE can't solve your feelings, but a conversation and work from the 2 of you can make things better.
You may discover some of his feelings as well - for better or for worse.

we have that convo indeph to the pointof tears at least oce a month boil down o e does understand he is sory and hen a week of goo behavior and i always tell him at least once a week how thankful i am that he goes and busts his butt to support his family and i love him!! thats why i am soo lost i just dunno anymore what to do!! :( i feel sad and alone! I just want to be happy ya know!

Certainly the two of you need to have a conversation, o several. You may need a counselor to help you communicate to each other rather that AT each other.
You may want to consider going into the work force at least part time. Often we veiw each other as havig the best side of the coin, when the reality is we simply have A side of the coin.
It took us years to work out how our marriage would work for us. You need to work the kinks out of yours. Our :deal" is that I take care of everything in the house and deal with the day to day running of the family. That includes being the bad guy because I am there all the time. He works hard to provide the monetary resources, while I try to make the most of them. He deals with the cars (except reminders on when) and I deal with the garden, except for heavy lifting. He does most of the mowing and I do most of the weeding. If either of us needs help we ask (sometimes more than on

once.
My kids got a little older and were in school and I went back in the work force. Sometimes as a volneer and sometimes in paid positions. 99% of the time I still dealt with the raising of the children and the running of the household, yet then again, I learned to delegate a little more. Flexibility and communication are the keys to a good relationship.
I have seen too often that an working long hoursand "seeing" the house is a mess and the kids running around and a grumpy woman telling him he needs to do the laundry and he wonders, "why do I have to work and do everything at home too, while she just sits around all day?"
Too often I see a woman who gets up early and makes breakfast an gets everyone dress and where the need to go, works all day at making menues and shopping and cleaning the house ad going to school meetings and church group meetings and playdates and making cookies for school and the costume for

and assignment and training the dog and running everyone to the doctor/dentist/vet. making dinner and cleaning up after dinner and....
And HE gets to go to work and talk to ADULTS and do INTERESTING things while she has all the drudgery. Neither is right and neither is wrong.
DH is no disciplinarian. He came to me wth a need to be the good guy. There are some underlying reasons, I won't go into, but that is the man I married and the one I love. He works on his flaws and I work on mine. And we work together.

Unfortunately, it does usually fall back on the one staying home... if the other works full time. Think about it. It is exhausting trying to work full time to help a family stay afloat. Haven't you ever watched Roseann? To me, that a very realistic show on how a family really works. Not some fantasy of how it should be.

As Dard says you have to find a happy medium. You simply can't have it all. No one is perfect, and no answer will be what you want to hear.

This is a generalization, of course, so nobody rip my eyeballs out--but many men didn't grow up with fathers who were particularly involved, or with the idea that they would be involved with their kids. I've had to purposely step back with my boyfriend, push him a little to do things with our daughter, and then stay out of the way and resist my urge to hover and make sure h'es doing everything the way I would. As I've done that, he's started to have fun doing tie dye and painting with our daughter, taking her to the swings, that kind of thing, which leads him to initiate the activities once in a while as she gets older. He didn't do too many things like that with his other kids. But it took me handing over bathtime and storytime at night to him and backing completely away so he wasn't trying to do things my way, he could find his own.

Men think we LIKE doing all the house and baby/child work. This should have been set up before marriage who will do what. You have shown him it's easy for you to do it all yourself. Now you asking for his help, he thinks is temporary. He'll have to be retrained. Just keep at him until he gets it right...you want constant help. Being a family is team work. He needs to get on board and be part of the team.

I view resentment as a signal that I've been ignoring my personal limits or assuming responsibility that doesn't belong to me for too long. So the resentful feelings are a symptom of a problem, a signal to notice how things are out of whack, and address that.

When trying to "address" issues or navigate a conflict, your communication habits can help or hinder the process.

I imagine the issue is with the process. If you focus on building a convincing case, hoping he will "get it" & respond, you are likely to fail in your efforts because justifying your position as reasonable & legitimate sets up a right/wrong dynamic in which he is wrong. This is the by-product of trying to validate your side (so as not to seem "unreasonable," or in hopes of persuading him.) That strategy naturally triggers defensiveness & resistance. The resistance may be passive-aggressive if he consciously "agrees with" you, but the backlash still is there.